The next population and housing census will take place on May 15, 2022. The district office of Berchtesgadener Land therefore provides information on the conduct of the census.
EU countries are required by EU law to carry out a population and housing census every ten years. The last census was carried out in 2011 – due to the corona, the planned date for 2021 has been postponed to 2022.
The census is a survey of the exact number of people, buildings and dwellings and provides information about how our society lives and functions. It is a central component of official statistics and therefore a necessary prerequisite as a planning basis for the federal government, federal states and municipalities for the fulfillment of state tasks – it provides demographic data on age, sex, nationality, living and working situation as well as level of education. The Federal Statistical Office works with the slogan “Record what is. Shape what will be”.
Survey complements register data
The determination of the official number of inhabitants is the legal basis for many regulations such as the composition of the Bundesrat, the division of constituencies, allocations in the state and municipal financial equalization and EU subsidies calculated per inhabitant.
The census is based on registers. This means that all public registers (registration registers, cadastral registers, etc.) with available administrative data are used to determine the correct census result. As the data from the registers was not available or of insufficient usable quality and in order to statistically verify the result drawn from the registers, three additional surveys were carried out.
• Sample based household survey:
Due to the register-based census, only less than ten percent of the population need be surveyed. Overall, this method is much less burdensome for citizens and also less expensive than a traditional census. The households to be surveyed are selected at random using a statistical random number generator. This sample of households is intended to identify over- and under-recordings as well as inaccuracies in the database and to correct inaccuracies in the registers. In addition, data is collected that is not available in any register, such as information on education and training or employment. The result of the determined sample is extrapolated to the total population. There is an obligation to provide information for the sample of households.
Choice of information obligation
• Census of buildings and apartments (GWZ):
As there is no national register of buildings and apartments, the 17 million private owners of apartments and buildings with living space, all co-owners and administrators active in commerce and other persons authorized to dispose and use buildings and apartments are queried. The goal of the GWZ is the full and complete registration of all buildings with living space, inhabited dwellings and apartments existing on the date of the survey. All owners, administrators and other persons authorized to dispose and use buildings and apartments are required to provide information.
• Special areas:
Special areas are addresses where a survey of residents is difficult to carry out due to special circumstances, such as high fluctuations, etc., and therefore the existing administrative register cannot be used due to the data situation. inaccurate. Special areas include dormitories (such as student dormitories, worker dormitories) and collective dwellings (such as boarding schools, retirement and nursing homes, refugee collective dwellings, barracks, institutions corrections). Due to the volatile data situation, a complete census of all residents is carried out in these special areas on the reference date. Here too, there is an obligation to inform.
The person obliged to provide information has the following options to fulfill his obligation to provide information:
• directly by the survey agent after a previously agreed meeting;
• via an online reporting channel encrypted by an access number and an activation code – the access data will be sent by post to the local investigation office or to the investigation officer on request;
• by paper questionnaire sent by post to the local survey agency or to the survey manager on request.
Data protection and data security
The protection and confidentiality of the data collected have top priority in the census. For this reason, the statistical offices of the federal and state governments pay the utmost attention to security measures that guarantee the protection of data during the census.
The data collected for the 2022 census is secured at the point of collection by structural, technical and organizational access restrictions. In addition, measures are taken to ensure data protection and security, which notably guarantees the confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of the data. The use of generally accessible networks in the area of census-relevant data in Bavaria is only intended with the respective state-of-the-art encryption process. The so-called replay ban applies to data collected as part of the 2022 census. This means that data collected for statistical purposes only ever flows in one direction – to official statistics. Individual details of official statistics can never be passed on to other administrative bodies – neither to the tax office, nor to the police or registration authorities. The collected data is evaluated exclusively in anonymized form in order to immediately exclude any conclusions regarding individual persons.
Further information on the census is available online from the Federal Statistical Office at www.zensus2022.de and from the Bavarian State Statistical Office at www.statistic.bayern. from/Zensus2022.
If you have any questions or would like to actively support the 2022 census as a surveyor, please call the Berchtesgadener Land district survey office, Breslauer Straße 46 in Freilassing 
08651/773-289 or by e-mail to [email protected] For a personal visit, we ask that you make an appointment in advance.